London Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games
An airport was opened on the site on 16th July 1938 by the Secretary of State for Air who was Kingsley Wood. During World War II, it was a base for Royal Air Force fighters. Situated where the valley of the River Lea cuts its way through the north-east end of the Chiltern Hills, Luton Airport occupies a hill-top location with a roughly 130 ft drop-off at the western end of the runway. The land was returned to the local council which continued activity at the airport as a commercial operation. Percival Aircraft had its factory at the airport until the early 1960s. From the mid-1960s, executive aircraft have been based at the airport, initially operated by McAlpine Aviation. These activities have grown and several executive jet operators and maintenance companies are now based at the airport. It became the operating base for charter airlines such as Autair which went on to become Court Line and Euravia, which is now Thomson Airways following Euravia's change of name to Britannia Airways and subsequent merger with First Choice Airways as well as the former Dan Air Services Limited and Monarch. In 1972, Luton Airport was the most profitable airport in the country. It suffered a severe setback in August 1974 because of major package holiday operator Clarksons and Court Line being liquidated. In the 1980s the airport was seeing a decline in customer numbers with the council responding to lobbying and focusing again on developing the airport, first by operating the airport at arms length via an independent management team. Necessary infrastructure work was undertaken as a result. The next 15 years saw a process of updating including the opening of a new international terminal, a new control tower with updated air traffic control systems and runway upgrades. The original runways had been grass tracks 18-36 and 6:24, and then a concrete runway 8:26. By the end of the 1980s, there was only one runway. The grass runway had disappeared under a landfill, while 6:24 had effectively become a taxiway. While developing the basic infrastructure various business partners were courted and business models were considered including a Luton Airport Parkway railway station and a people mover from station to terminal, which is the unused underpass parallel to the road as you approach the terminal. Luton Airport was renamed London Luton Airport in 1990 to emphasise the airport's proximity to the UK capital. In 1991, another setback occurred when Ryanair transferred its London operating base to Stansted Airport with MyTravel Group beginning charter flights from the airport using the Airtours name, which resulted in new flights from EasyJet. In 2004 the airport management announced that they supported the government plans to expand the facilities to include a full length runway and a new terminal. Local campaign groups including Luton and District Association for the Control of Aircraft Noise and Stop Luton Airport Plan opposed the new expansion plans because of reasons including noise pollution and traffic concerns. Luton and District Association for the Control of Aircraft Noise also claimed that Someries Castle would be threatened by the expansion. On 6th July 2007, it was announced that the owners of London Luton Airport had decided to scrap a second runway because of financial reasons. In 2005 London Luton Airport Operations Limited was acquired by Airport Concessions Development Limited, which is a company owned by Abertis Infraestructuras. Abertis is a European infrastructure provider while Aena Internacional is the international business arm of the Spanish national airport and air traffic control organisation. From the following year, Silverjet operated long haul flights to Newark and Dubai but ceased operations because of the global economic crisis. 8 years later La Compagnie announced to terminate their route from London Luton to Newark because of economic reasons. Luton lost its only long-haul service. Luton Airport features a two-storey passenger terminal building which has been expanded and rearranged several times. The ground floor features 62 check in desks, with 1 airport lounge located inside the terminal besides a Burger King branch as well as WH Smith's. Claudia Winkleman hosted the Strictly Come Dancing results show and the special editions that Bruce Forsyth had missed between 2010 and 2013, with Forsyth having to pull out of hosting the Strictly Come Dancing Christmas Special because of health reasons. Each judge gives the performance a mark out of ten which gives an overall total out of forty. The voice over announcer is Alan Dedicoat. The aim of the dance is for the couples to convince the judges that they deserve to go through to the following week's competition. Before they attempt the dance the couple sometimes gets advice from the judges who decide based on the dance. If one couple has two votes and the other couple has one vote, then the final vote is down to the Head Judge. He has the deciding vote and whichever couple he chooses to save is through to the following week meaning that the other couple is eliminated. When Craig Revel Horwood, Arlene Phillips, Alesha Dixon and Bruno Tonioli agree and Len disagrees, then the latter's vote does not count because of the couple who would have had more votes. The eliminated couple talk about their experience or watch a video of their time on the show. Afterwards, the eliminated couple perform one final dance or waltz out of the ballroom as some people call it. The day after they are eliminated, they chat to Zoë Ball about their time on the show. In series 14 of Strictly Come Dancing the dance was cancelled because of a injury sustained by Anastacia during the rehearsals for the live shows, which caused the Teletubbies to say "Uh oh!" In autumn 2015 Luton hit the headlines when Reagan Farmer was able to register videos that effectively he could not save from his YouTube channel irrespective of how many videos were uploaded in his favour. The Chevrolet Spark failed to qualify according to Ariana Grande, with Citroën saying that the C4 could not "mathematically survive because of the viewing system however the company was invited to call in to save the car from total extinction, which was at a cost of £284m per vote." This resulted in The Joker Chaos Coaster being cancelled and all the videos being carried over to the following year. Reagan countersued by alleging that Six Flags Over Georgia failed to deliver according to the contract and increased the cost of $1 for the "Joker Chaos Coaster" name in 2013, and Amusement Today was able to identify Blue Streak in the Golden Ticket Awards at #27 among the world's top wooden roller coasters. Blue Streak's success led to a rebirth of roller coasters at Cedar Point including the installation of Cedar Creek Mine Ride, Corkscrew, Gemini and Jr. Gemini Category:London Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games